REVISION OF NEO-MARXISM: THE CONCEPT OF CAPITALIST STABILITY AS EXEMPLIFIED BY THE "OCCUPY WALL STREET" MOVEMENT

Abstract

The article substantiates the author's concept of "nonlinear politics of capitalism" as a political-procedural disclosure of the neo-Marxist concept of "unstable stability of global capitalism". The method of justifica-tion is the verification of the concept of "nonlinear politics of capitalism" by the empirical material of the anti-globalist protest movement "Occupy Wall Street". The essence of the concept of the "nonlinear poli-tics of capitalism" is that the modern political order of Western states not only opposes alternative ideolo-gies and political practices, but also uses them as a way of its own legitimization and stabilization. The study reveals that in the modern Western capitalist order there is a mystification of capitalism in the mul-tidimensional spectrum of social conflict, where the class contradiction appears as an archaism. There is a reinforcement of anti-capitalist resistance within a model in which all anti-capitalist slogans and demands fit into the ideology of "improving the conditions of exploitation", and anti-capitalist practices legitimize capitalism as an "inclusive" political regime. There is a nonlinear political reaction when capitalism shows the greatest strength in those situations that threaten its reproduction the least and vice versa. Such politi-cal tactics "channel" anti-capitalist protest, making it manageable and functional for the stable reproduc-tion of capitalism.